


To Notice

by Pepsi (Pepsiiii)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, M/M, Pining, Zagreus has it bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27998520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pepsiiii/pseuds/Pepsi
Summary: “He talks a lot” Zagreus notices.OR; A short peek into the mind of a knight in training (Zagreus) and the farmhand (Hypnos)
Relationships: Hypnos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 71





	To Notice

**Author's Note:**

> hahah something short! enjoy

“ _He talks a lot”_ Zagreus notices. 

“ _Perhaps that adds to his charm”_ Zagreus thinks, hands tapping aimlessly on the table, eyes skimming the textbook easily. The book, about the specifics of horseback riding, is a bit dingy from age. His eyes catch on the sides of the pages, adorned with oily stains from human fingers; tears from hard grips; smudged text from paper long since ruined by stains. It smells of grass and paper, as a book would, and as he reads front he top of page 1 to the middle of page 2, he hears the sound of hooves clopping past.

“ _Does he see his own appeal?”_ Zagreus wonders, as he walks from the knights training ground over to the stables. The sun bears down on him gently, the sky a soft orange hue. He wonders while walking, taking in the sights, and playing with the name stuck on his tongue. “ _Hypnos”_ Rolling it around, tasting each syllable as if, maybe, if he could memorize each letter that maybe he’ll appear. Something like that. He learned it in passing. The clash of iron against steel, sweat running down his neck and freezing on his back as he moves. Training ran later than usual and he stumbled upon him. He looked tired, he _was_ tired. Zagreus notices his silence and wonders if he knows what that void of noise does for his image. 

“ _He’s looking at me.”_ Zagreus realizes. He was brushing his horse’s mane, her name was _Wooden Dagger,_ and thinking about his smile. It was reserved, quiet (‘ _nothing like him’_ his brain supplies when the inner monologue loses it's script, the words falling from his mind as quickly as they came. The image of a giant looking down at a garden and smiling, so _so_ softly, seared into his mind— making him breathless should he think of it. He never stops. His chest, lacking in air, fills with something else _. Heavier)_ it was so different from the loud men he was around in class or during practice. Yet, almost without knowing, it wasn’t bashful. He wasn’t a delicate flower or something else simplistic. He was… he was… (Zagreus rolls the letters around again, chewing on them as if they were a cut on his lip, the more he bites at it the worse it stings). 

“ _He’s here.”_ Zagreus whispers to himself. They’re loading hay. It's hard to breathe with all the dust and dirt in the air, almost like smoke (but then again Zagreus hasn’t been able to breathe around him for a long time). Zagreus looks at his hands, a bit scarred. He wonders what happened to make a guy like him, a guy so… inoffensive, so lonely. Maybe it was the height, the eyes, the strength, the legs and—

“You’re staring.” He says. Zagreus looks at the rake in his hands, held with a firm grip. He, in a moment of seemingly never-ending weakness on Zagreus’ part, wishes for but a moment he was that rake. He hopes his face shows the effects of hard labor and summer heat, not his thoughts.

  
_“You’re easy to look at.”_ Zagreus yells. To himself. In his head. Maybe the horses hear too, they’re looking at him like he's mad. He apologizes and looks back at his side of the barn, ignoring the chill down his spine as he looks at him. Zagreus ignores it, and ignores the tension, ignoring the silent question Hypnos poses. He tries to take a breath and remembers where he is, who he's with and realizes that isn’t an option anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> HMU on twt as usual for Hypnos art and writing! @Mrshaiiba


End file.
